Photo: World Series by Renault
Matthieu Vaxiviere surprised the pack to take the opening pole position of the Eurocup Formula Renault 2.0 season in the wet at Aragon.
Overnight rain resulted in a wet session though the track was drying and Vaxiviere took advantage of the conditions to post the fastest lap time in the first of the two groups, and will start race one ahead of fellow Frenchman Esteban Ocon who topped the other group.
?With these track conditions, we knew that the fastest time would come on the final lap,? said Vaxiviere afterwards. ?I was on the way to doing a very good lap in the middle of the session but got caught up in traffic. My team manager Simon Abadie said there was no point trying to do a Senna lap with people in the way, so I pulled out a Vaxiviere lap just before the chequered flag.?
Pierre Gasly will begin the race from third on the grid joined alongside his Tech 1 team-mate, Russian rookie Egor Orudzhev who enjoyed a strong start to his Eurocup campaign displaying his pace.
William Vermont will start from fifth, meaning four of the top five on the grid are French.
Jake Dennis will look to push on from sixth spot while Luca Ghiotto enjoyed an impressive debut in the series and will start from seventh place on the grid for Prema Powerteam slotted next to Steijn Schothorst.
Britain?s Oliver Rowland will start from ninth while Oscar Tunjo will look to charge from tenth.
Nyck de Vries, quickest on the timesheets yesterday in the wet he was unfortunate to miss out on the top-ten but from eleventh could pose a threat coming through.
Results to follow